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The art of letting go is a delicate skill. I don’t believe anyone comes into the world knowing how to “hold and release.” Letting go is a choice. It is learned, and very rarely does the one making the release get to practice before the test. Nine times out of ten, it’s a matter of swallowing the un-swallowable and prying a body part lose—whether finger-by-finger or heart-string-by-string. Letting go gracefully is a paradox among virtues. In every other instance of life—at least all the instances that I care about, passion is the key: the act of caring enhances your ratio…

At the bottom of each individual, I truly believe that every one of us has a good heart in common. Maybe it has been obscured or protected by scars, but the original seed of optimistic hope remains. There is something else we have in common—words. We use them every day for every purpose from comfort to weapons. For many of us, they are the tools of our trade, and I have personally been in love with them since I was old enough to understand that the magical thing my mother was sharing with me was called a book. Words are…

I recently moved and purchased a house that was promising, but in need of a few touches to look and feel 100% like me. A few of the changes were actually needed. A few others were wanted, but the most extraneous adjustment that I made was to replace the front door. There was nothing wrong with the old one. It was windowless, dark wood, rather plain. By my standards, a door should represent what’s beyond. After all, it does signify a beginning or end… to a visit, a nesting, an effort for connection to someone, something “yonder”—all important, at least…

I have had four, large dogs in my home for more than three weeks. Two of them are my own, a ten year old Siberian Husky and a Belgian Tervuren barely more than a puppy. The other two are visitors, another long-haired Siberian and a Samoyed the same age as the Terv. I have long acknowledged that all four are beautiful and remarkable dogs. I have had and been around dogs all of my life. I wouldn’t want to live in a household without them, but I admit that four are almost more personality than one roof can cover. Their…

I’ve gotten over the need for others’ approval of my writing years ago by adopting the attitude that if I shared my fanciful tales honestly and interwoven with truth, then public opinion is the effect but not the result of the cause. So I strive for a positive product, yet the reason I write is because I’m compelled to, regardless of the effect. On the tenth of August, I agreed to “sell” the first novel in my nine-novel series for free—just for a few days. In marketing strategy, this is classified a promotion, but in the heart of my “writer…